Nocturne
Nocturne is a work for mixed chamber ensemble. The different sections of the piece evoke night-time scenes and moods that float around each other as dreams : A midnight garden... a lullaby... star-lit trysts... deep sleep...
While composing the piece, I had these two Nocturnes in my mind:
V
I am weary with love, and thy lips
Are night-born poppies.
Give me therefore thy lips
That I may know sleep.
VI
I am weary with longing,
I am faint with love;
For upon my head has the moonlight
Fallen
As a sword.
from the Nocturnes by Skipwith Cannell
The première of Nocturne took place on Friday 13th June 2025 at Helen Filene Ladd Concert Hall, Saratoga Springs, NY, USA, with players from American Modern Ensemble and conducted by Rebekah Lambert.
calm tracing for string quartet (2024)
calm tracing is a single-movement work for string quartet. When writing the piece, I maintained in my mind's eye the image of golden, dappled morning light through a stained-glass window. The title is a double-entendre evoking the tranquil, sweet reverie of the image, as well as a pun referring to the leaden strips that encase stained glass, which are called calms.
The work is dedicated to my four close friends who helped and took part in recording it: Julie Minn, Sam Parrini, Marcus Stevenson, and Lydia Rhea.
‘Erano i capei d’oro’ for Piano Trio (2025)
This piece was written for the 2025 edition of the HighSCORE festival in Belluno, Italy. It was premiered by Trio Kanon on 19th July 2025 at the Centro di spiritualità e cultura Papa Luciani, Santa Giustina.
Much of the core material is from a short art song I wrote in 2024 that sets H.D.'s 'Song', published in 1921. Knowing I would be writing this new piece for an Italian piano trio, I turned my attention to Petrarch's well known sonnet 'Erano i capei d'oro a l'aura sparsi' for inspiration, written almost 600 years earlier. The first line is often translated into English as: 'She used to let her golden hair scatter in the breeze...' Both poems share motifs of gold and luminosity, and a sweet and affectionate mood as each speaker addresses their love.
Strewn Petals on Restless Water
for Orchestra (2025)
Strewn Petals on Restless Water grew inevitably out of my fondness of the poetry of the Imagists.
One world in particular, John Cournos' prose-poem ‘The Rose’, is a real sumptuous barrage of evocative image and colour. Upon my first reading, I instantaneously heard music pouring out of each and every grain of language.
Accompanying my score, words from the poem loosely guide (or are guided by) the music.
The piece is centred around the Rose Petal Motif (Re-Do-Sol-La), which I chose for its purity; hovering above a maritime scene that bubbles with restlessness between moments of serenity.
I remember a day when I stood on the sea shore at Nice, holding a scarlet rose in my hands.
The calm sea, caressed by the sun, was brightly garmented in blue, veiled in gold, and violet, verging on silver.
[…]
And the sea continued to return it to me, again and again, at last no longer a flower, but strewn petals on restless water.
So with the heart, and with all proud things. In the end nothing remains but a handful of petals of what was once a proud flower…